Bone allografts are used in a variety of medical procedures, e.g., spinal fusion procedures. Such bone allografts need first to be processed at a sanctioned facility and then are provided to medical facilities that perform the procedures. These processing facilities may shape bone allografts and then package them for transportation to medical facilities. Commonly, the bone allografts are either: (1) fresh frozen or (2) freeze-dried prior to packaging and transportation to a medical facility. Disadvantages exist with both of these approaches. Specifically, fresh frozen bone allografts must be continuously stored at low temperatures (ie: frozen) both when stored and when transported to the medical facility to ensure their suitability for future medical procedures. Disadvantages of requiring such refrigerated storage include both the cost incurred in operating such equipment and the preparation time required in thawing the allografts for use at the start of the medical procedure. Additionally, freeze-dried bone allografts must be re-hydrated prior to use in a medical procedure (which may require some time). Moreover, during the re-hydration process, the bone allograft must be kept in a sterile environment. Due to the time required either to thaw fresh frozen bone allografts or to re-hydrate freeze dried bone allografts, the thawing/re-hydration of the allografts must be commenced at a period of time prior to actually starting the medical procedure, thus increasing the overall time required to perform the surgical procedure.
A further disadvantage of using a freeze-dried bone allograft is that the freeze-drying process reportedly reduces the mechanical properties of the bone (e.g., compressive strength and rigidity). Re-hydrating the bone has been reported to restore only about 90% of the original properties, and this restoration is dependent on physician compliance with the re-hydration process.
Moreover, in certain medical procedures the required size or shape of the bone allograft may not be known a priori. Consequently, it may be necessary to thaw and/or re-hydrate several bone allografts of different sizes and shapes prior to the medical procedure. Those allografts not used during the procedure would then need to be discarded. This is an inefficient use of a limited resource (bone allograft) and is time consuming. Accordingly, a need exists for an improved system for packaging bone allografts for future medical procedures, and in particular a system in which the allografts can be readied for surgical use much more quickly than existing methods allow.